


firsts

by GrumpiestCat



Series: Missing Scenes, Missing Timelines [14]
Category: Zero Escape: Zero Time Dilemma - Fandom
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-01
Updated: 2017-01-01
Packaged: 2018-09-13 19:38:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,217
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9139171
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GrumpiestCat/pseuds/GrumpiestCat
Summary: What, exactly, would count as their first kiss?





	

**Author's Note:**

> 2017 is going to be a long, hard road, but I wish you a Happy New Year anyway. We're going in fighting.
> 
> First, have some fluff. (Also angst. There's always angst.)

As he watched her sleep, he realized he wasn’t sure what exactly counted as their first kiss.

 

There was the first one in this timeline, of course.  Over twenty-four hours after escaping Dcom, when they finally were alone, when he went to her hotel room.  He had gotten one glance at her cat slippers and had to waste more time explaining ameowt that.  With a shy smile, Diana tucked them under her bed and changed the subject, patiently waiting for the puns to pass.

 

They had been so tentative then.  Or at least, he had been.  She had been the one who invited him to sit on the bed, who had taken his hand, who had leaned over to chastely press her lips to his.  He didn’t even know if could really be called a kiss.  Not until he parted his lips and she followed his lead, their tongues colliding as they both had the same desire to explore the other’s mouth.  He had lain back, pulling her on top of him.  When she felt his cock hardening underneath her, she had gasped, grinding her hips into his, making him cry out loudly enough that Carlos – in the room next door – had smirked at him the next time they ran into each other.

 

But perhaps things wouldn’t have happened that quickly if, before that, in a way, they had both experienced a first kiss back in the underground shelter.  Not linearly, but nothing ever had been with them. 

 

Her lips had tasted like tears. Sigma hadn’t even meant to kiss her, but when she turned her head to look at him, her mouth was _right there_ and she didn’t pull back or push him away.  They hadn’t spoken, not even when he got her to her feet, not even when they collapsed into the pods, not until she started removing his clothing and he had to make sure it wasn’t going to be a drunken mistake.

 

That kiss, perhaps, was the catalyst that led to everything, both good and bad.

 

But maybe that kiss wouldn’t even have happened if he didn’t have memories of years of kisses back on the Moon.  She had taken the initiative there, as well. 

 

It had been impossible to view his arms and eye as anything other than a gross deformity at first.  He felt ugly.  His shoulders were marred with hideous scars.  He had lost some muscle tone in the hospital, when he had spent too much time in bed, and even a couple weeks in a medically-induced coma to prevent brain damage.  All of his usual confidence and swagger was gone, and more than once, he had wondered why this beautiful, kind woman had come to his little tin can on the Moon to be with him.  He suspected pity or guilt and had shied away from her when she tried to bring her lips to his.

 

Flustered, she had excused herself to go to the garden.  Her garden.  Even when she was gone, it was always her garden.  He had avoided her for three days, until she came to him and told him he was being ridiculous.  He hadn’t resisted when she tried again, although he had kept his hands at his sides, touching her only when she begged him.

 

If they had met under normal circumstances, he imagined he would have been the assertive one.  Instead, she had seduced him, made him not feel ashamed when he cried afterwards.  For the first time since his consciousness had returned from the future, he felt hopeful.  He had resigned himself to forty-five years of isolation and possibly misery, because he thought it was the only way to stop Radical-6.  After that moment, he could imagine forty-five years of growing old with her, building a family, working together.

 

That hope had been taken from him then, but he could allow himself to have it now. 

 

With that, Sigma couldn’t help it; his thoughts turned to their _last_ kisses. 

 

When she had been dying, pale and weak, unable to kiss him back, but he had kept pressing his mouth against hers anyway, listening to the gradually slowing beeping from the heart monitor.  As if he was Prince Charming and if he just kissed her the right way, magic would restore her health.  She had been so cold and he had tasted blood on her lips, from where she had coughed it up earlier.  _Don’t leave me_ , he had whispered.  _I can’t lose you.  I don’t know what I’ll do if I lose you.  I can’t … I can’t …_

He had kissed her again, on her cheek, before he buried her, before he covered her pale, perfect skin with dirt.

 

And again, his stomach in agony from disuse, curled up in the transport pod with the twins between them.  Their lips were chapped and the babies were crying, because she was never able to nurse them.  His memory ended then, so he presumed he was the first to die.  Part of him was grateful that he went without having to watch the three of them fade away.  It let him entertain the fantasy that maybe they were rescued, maybe she was able to raise them in another world.

 

He had memories of deaths where he never got to kiss her.  Timelines where she died thinking he was that weird, creepy, crazy guy from Dcom.  But what could he have done?  He couldn’t very well go up to her and say, “I know we just met, but I love you, I’d give my life for you, we’ve actually banged a lot in an alternate timeline and I’m here to save the world but I’d also like to fuck you sideways because you died four decades ago and I’ve missed you every day since then.”

 

Probably would have been a bad idea.

 

She moaned softly as she rolled over from her side onto her back, her hand resting on her stomach.  It was entirely too early to know if their fervent attempts earlier in the night had succeeded in impregnating her.  They’d have to try tomorrow night, and the next one, and the one after that.  To be on the safe side.  He doubted she would complain. 

 

It was their first real New Year’s Eve together, as the frenzied events after Dcom didn’t really count.  Everyone had celebrated with cold pizza and cheap, warm wine from a box, with even Sean toasting with a plastic cup.  When it struck midnight, Junpei had kissed Akane on the lips, Eric planted a small kiss on Mira’s cheek, and Carlos looked at him and Diana as if he expected them to follow suit.  Phi had saved them from embarrassment by distracting everyone when she knocked over the box of wine; he still wasn’t sure if she had done that on purpose or not.

 

Their child would be the first one they’d be able to raise together.  Tomorrow night would be their first night as a married couple.  As long as all the paperwork went through okay, by the end of the month, they’d be moving into their first house.  If their history together was too circuitous to pin down what exactly counted as their first kiss, it didn’t really matter.  Just as long as they had a future.

 

(fin.)


End file.
